The Spice Trade

“You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.”–Han Solo, Star Wars: A New Hope

Trade routes run throughout the galaxy like veins through a body, carrying food, medicine, weapons, and other vital goods to a thousand worlds. For the most part, this trade is heavily controlled by the Empire with tariffs and restrictions, but beneath the surface, a shadow trade has arisen. This underworld economy carries slaves, black market items, and perhaps most importantly, the addictive narcotics known as spice. The spice trade has made countless criminals rich, and with a new Force Pack for Star Wars™: The Card Game, any dark side forces can take advantage of the spice trade.

New Alliances, the second Force Pack in the Endor cycle,is now available at your local United States retailer and online through our webstore! Like the rest of the Endor cycle, New Alliances continues to the climactic events of Return of the Jedi and offers a brand-new card type: mission cards. With ten new objective sets (two copies each of four normal sets and one copy each of two “limit 1 per objective deck” sets), New Alliances expands the options available to every affiliation.

Running Spice

Delving into the spice trade means associating with the scum of the galaxy, but it’s no secret that trading spice can be highly profitable for those involved. You’ll get your first taste of the profits with this set’s objective,
The Spice Trade
(New Alliances, 954). This objective is limited to one copy per objective deck, and it provides two resources. More importantly, this objective also bears the elite keyword, instantly setting it apart from every other two-resource objective. With most objectives that provide two resources, you must wait for your objective to refresh after you’ve placed two focus tokens on it. The Spice Trade allows you to use both of its resources turn after turn, until your opponent destroys it.

The downside of The Spice Trade is its extremely low damage capacity, but fortunately, this objective has a Forced Interrupt that prevents this from becoming an issue. When The Spice Trade is destroyed by your opponent, it is removed from the game instead of being placed in the light side victory pile! Unless your opponent wants to see you continue to benefit from The Spice Trade’s resources, he must essentially waste an attack to destroy the objective.

You gain an additional advantage from any objective’s destruction with
Moruth Doole
(New Alliances, 955). Moruth Doole provides a valuable tactics icon for the dark side’s defenses, and he also offers a unique ability. Whenever an objective is destroyed, this unit allows you to immediately move a focus token from any one of your units to one of your opponent’s units, simultaneously refreshing your units and helping to prevent additional attacks from your opponent’s units.

The Spice Trade objective set also includes a prime candidate for Moruth Doole’s ability: two copies of the
Energy Spider
(New Alliances, 956). This formidable unit costs only one resource, and it features a damage capacity of four and powerful combat icons for attack or defense. Obviously, such efficiency must come at a price. Although it can be very powerful the first turn you play it, the Energy Spider never refreshes during the refresh phase. In most circumstances, this means you can only use the Energy Spider once, though you may combine it with
Admiral Motti
(Core Set, 8) to use it more consistently. Alternatively, another card in this objective set gives you a way to free your Energy Spiders for combat once more.

Spice Blitz
(New Alliances, 957) costs just a single resource to play, and it reads, “Action: Remove all focus tokens from a target unit. If that unit is still in play at the end of the phase, place twice that many focus tokens on it.” Of course, this can work well with the Energy Spiders or whenever you desperately need a unit ready to attack or defend once more. You may also use Spice Blitz more offensively, however. Perhaps one of your opponent’s key units is committed to the Force and would refresh at the beginning of his next turn. By playing Spice Blitz and targeting that unit, you can lock that unit down for at least one more round, if not more.

Finally, The Spice Trade objective set raises the tension of every edge battle by introducing a brand-new fate card to the game:
Halluncination
(New Alliances, 958). This fate card contributes two Force icons to your side in the edge battle, and it allows you to resolve the effects of another fate card in any edge stack as if it were revealed in your own edge stack. Then, if the Balance of the Force is with the dark side, you can resolve the chosen effects again! Whether you’re doubling a
Heat of Battle
(Core Set, 169) to kill an enemy unit or
Seeds of Decay
(Knowledge and Defense, 514) to pin down multiple foes, Hallucination can turn an entire battle in your favor.

Making Credits

The spice trade is highly lucrative, but those who engage in it have a tendency to meet a sticky end. Harness the power of the spice trade to turn the tide at the Battle of Endor or join the Rebellion as they dispatch a strike team against the Imperial shield generator. Whichever side you fight for, you decide the fate of the galaxy in New Alliances, now available at your local U.S. retailer.

The characters, starships, and situations of the original Star Wars trilogy come to life in Star Wars: The Card Game, a head-to-head Living Card Game® of tactical combat and strategic planning that allows two players to wage cinematic combats between the light and dark sides of the Force.